My first foray into food preservation has been a series of trial and error, with a few edible creations along the way. I began with Smitten Kitchen's brilliant pickled carrot sticks. Delightful in every way! Not only were they beautiful to look at, but they tasted just sweet and tart enough to curl our toes and tickle our tummies. And they were remarkably easy to make!
Step 1: heat vinegar and spices in a pot
Step 2: pour over cut carrots
Step 3: let the carrot-vinegar mixture cool before sticking in a jar and stuffing them into the fridge
Step 4: duh, eat! (with better taste after a few days)
I used a combination of regular orange and some pretty blue carrots and that resulted in... pink pickles! They were so pretty
My next pickling adventure didn't go so swimmingly. I found a simple recipe for refrigerator pickles online, but it called for what I thought would be too little vinegar, so I used about the same amount for the cucumbers as I used for Smitten Kitchen's carrots... not thinking that, duh!, carrots absorb way less vinegar than cucumbers. The outcome was an unpleasantly vinegary mess of squishy pickles. Again, they came out a funny color, but this time from using red onions.. pinkish cucumber pickles are less cute than pink carrot pickles. Result: total, abject failure.
Next, I winged it. I picked up some pickling spices from the bulk bin at a local store (NatureMart Bulk Bin near the intersection of Los Feliz and Hillhurst). I poured in some vinegar, some water, and threw in a few teaspoons of spices
With all these failed pickled experiments behind me, I'm thinking I'll maybe cave and buy some pickling mix from the grocery store, or follow another recipe online. After doing some research, though, I've found that it seems like all pickle recipes call for clove and cinnamon... why is this? The New York Times, Chow, and even David Lebovitz want my pickles to be yucky. Is there a gross-pickle-conspiracy growing among the interwebs.. or am I missing some vital pickle mystery?